Thursday, April 18, 2013

In most of my motivating talks, I always like to share this story which I gathered more than 30 years ago. Let me share it with you today....

Follow Your Dream by Jack Canfield.

I have a friend named Monty Roberts who owns a horse ranch in San Ysidro. He has let me use his house to put on fund raising events to raise money for youth at risk programmes. The last time I was there he introduced me by saying, "I want to tell you why I let Jack use my house. It all goes back to a story about a young man who was the son of an itinerant horse trainer who would go for stable to stable, race track to race track, farm to farm and ranch to ranch, training horses. As a result, the boy's high school career was continually interrupted. When he was a senior, he was asked to write a paper about what he wanted to be and do when he grew up.

That night he wrote a seven page paper describing his goal of somebody owning a horse ranch. He wrote about his dream in great details and he even drew a diagram of a 200-acre ranch, showing the location of all the building, the stables and the track. Then he drew a detailed floor plan for a 4,000 square foot house that would sit on the 200-acre dream ranch.

He put a great deal of his heart into the project and the next day he handed it in to his teacher. Two days later he received his paper back. On the front page was a large red F with a note that read, "See me after class."

The boy with the dream went to see the teacher after class and asked, "Why did I receive an F?" The teacher said, "This is an unrealistic dream for a young boy like you. You come from an itinerant family. You have no resources. Owning a horse ranch requires a lot of money. You have to buy the land. You have to pay for the original breeding stock and later you'll have to pay large stud fees. There's no way you could ever do it." Then the teacher added, "If you will rewrite this paper with a more realistic goal, I will reconsider your grade."

The boy went home and thought about it long and hard. He asked his father what he should do. His father said, "Look son, you have to make up your own mind on this. However, I think it is a very important decision for you."

Finally, after sitting with it for a week, the boy turned in the same paper, making no changes at all. He stated, "You can keep the F and I'll keep my dream." Monty then turned to the assembled group and said, "I tell you this story because you are sitting in my 4,000 square foot house in the middle of my 200 acre horse ranch. I still have the school paper framed over the fireplace." When the teacher was leaving, he said, "Look, Monty, I can tell you this now. When I was your teacher, I was something of a dream stealer. During those years I stole a lot of kid's dreams. Fortunately you had enough gumption not to give up on yours."